Beta + Cancelled Bethesda Softworks Video Games

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BattleCry is a cancelled Free-To-Play multiplayer Third Person Hero Shooter game developed only for PC by BattleCry Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks between 2012 and 2015. The game was set in an alternate 20th century universe where a cataclysmic world war forced powerful empires to ban gun powder under a treaty named “The Black Powder Treaty”. Following this, the world gave birth to the Pansophic Revolution – a golden age of industrial manufacturing and design. But as technology advanced, tensions reignited and the world faced a war once more. All battles are settled head-on by elite teams of chosen warriors from all over the world, with each member specializing in either high-tech ranged gadgetry or sophisticated melee weapons.

The art direction of the game was designed by the late Viktor Antonov.

The first information regarding BattleCry was hinted in October 2012 where Bethesda Softworks announced the creation of BattleCry Studios as one of its new subsidiaries:

Battlecry Studios is a new development house being built in Austin by Zenimax Media’s Bethesda Softworks. Battlecry will be under the direction of Rich Vogel, a former VP at BioWare Austin, who most recently was an Executive Producer on Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Actually, for the past ten years Vogel’s been working on MMOs, at both Electronic Arts and Sony Online Entertainment. Coincidentally, ZeniMax Online is working on The Elder Scrolls Online, but it would seem that’s not what Battlecry is up to, since it’s working on an “unannounced project.”

BattleCry was officially revealed in May 2014 as we can read on USA Today:

The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks is jumping into the free-to-play business.
The company unveiled Battlecry, a 32-person online multiplayer combat game that will launch on PCs in 2015.
Designer Viktor Antonov, best known for his work with Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, is working on the game, which takes place near the dawn of the 20th century. Gun powder has been banned following a world war, paving the way for a revolution in industrial manufacturing. As a new war bubbles up, elite squads of fighters engage in battle in a variety of WarZones.
Players choose warriors with their own unique weapons and skillsets. The game features three classes: the Enforcer, the ranged Tech Archer and the speedy Duelist. Weapons include swords that can turn into shields, high-powered bows and blades wielding electro-static energy.

Further details and gameplay videos were shared at E3 2014. Thus, PCWorld wrote:

There’s been quite a land-grab lately in the “multiplayer-only melee combat” genre. On the relatively realistic side of the spectrum we have Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and War of the Roses. Progressing more to the arcade end of things we have the recently released War of the Vikings.
And now Bethesda is making a play into the market with third-person action game BattleCry. If you’ll allow me to compare to a separate genre here—if Chivalry is Call of Duty and War of the Roses is Battlefield, BattleCry is straight-up Team Fortress 2.
BattleCry is fast, with little time for thought. It’s cartoony. It’s pure arcade silliness.
The game’s classes are all distinctive both in abilities and in silhouette. There’s the aforementioned Enforcer, a hulking figure replete with transforming sword, or the much more diminutive Duelist, who can cloak to escape combat situations.
You zip around the map at breakneck speeds, leap incredible distances, occasionally grapple through the air from point to point, and then arrive at the battle to swing your sword wildly with about ten other teammates. BattleCry falls prey to the same problem as Chivalry and War of the Roses/Vikings in that melee combat is inherently hard to replicate in games, especially in multiplayer. Instead you end up with a rough approximation of what sword fighting is like.
In our demo I’d say that skill and strategy mattered far less than which team brought a larger number of players to the fight. If you’re on your own, you’re probably doomed. If your group of three meets up with a group of five enemies, you’re probably doomed. If you’re evenly matched…well, then things get interesting. Then, the composition of your group can matter a whole lot.
I found the most fun playing the Duelist. Being able to uncloak and stab enemies in the back while they were busy fighting my comrades felt like a definite advantage, and it was more precise than spamming the attack button like the Enforcer class. The Tech Archer was also a lot of fun—here I was kitted out with a bow and throwing knives, which again felt more skill-based.
But it’s arcadey. These 32-player battles move fast, and there’s not a lot of reason to sit still and plan out attacks. You throw your units into the meat grinder and hope your faction comes out on top.
(…)
There’s not a lot to the game yet, but the game’s also at least six months from even entering a beta phase, which is slated for 2015. This was but a first taste of the game, and a short one at that. BattleCry will be free, though, so nothing’s stopping you from busting out your PC and giving it a shot whenever it releases. You’d better practice your snappiest salute—I’ll be looking for it, presumably sometime next year.

There were a total of 5 playable classes within 3 factions in BattleCry. Here are the factions with some information:

The Imperial Marines:
With the creation of the Black Powder Treaty, the Royal Marines were chosen to represent the United Kingdom in the WarZones. Devasted by the aftermath of global war, the British saw the fragility of their far flung Empire. They see the Black Powder Treaty and WarZones as way to legitimize their Empire as is and hold onto it without the high costs of all-out war. Descended from the famous red coated soldiers of the Napoleanic and Crimean Wars, these hardened Commandos meld their 18th century traditions to the needs of the modern WarZones. By staunchly supporting the creation of the WarZones they have earned an image as world leaders, which they will defend no matter what it takes.
The Cossack Empire:
Terribly headstrong and fearless, the Cossacks transformed villages and outposts into special military estates similar to the knights of medieval Europe. The Black Powder treaty gave the Cossacks a tremendous military advantage over their foes and their former lords. They declared complete independence, rebelled simultaneously against the Polish and Russian kings, won and ceased to be a vassal nation. After creating an independent Cossack Kingdom they decided to fight the Imperial Marines in the WarZones as they vied for control over the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.

The last known faction was the Han Republic which was announced later without information regarding their lore.

Regarding the 5 playable classes, here is what we could read about them:

There are five classes within the game—Enforcer, Gadgeteer, Brawler, Infiltrator and Ranger. The Enforcers are the basic tanks, Gadgeteers are supports with guns, Brawlers are the melee dps, Infiltrators are the game’s take assassins and the Rangers are the bow-wielding ranged dps.

After going silent for a whole year, the game was showcased again at E3 2015 where signing for a closed beta was also announced. IGN wrote:

(…) For example, the Infiltrator class moves faster than, say, the brutish Enforcer class and can briefly turn invisible to deliver sweet stealthy death. Unfortunately, they also seem to have less health and deal slightly less damage per blow than other classes, so if you ever find yourself outnumbered, you’ll maybe get one kill in before the other team literally tears you apart. This means you have to play strategically – stalking lone players for quick, easy kills or relying on your teammates to run cover as you slip in and out of combat.
By contrast, Enforcers are slow-moving meat shields. They can stand and defend a capture point all day, but if you try to rush an enemy base, you have chosen poorly and will probably be very dead very soon. Pair an Enforcer with the strictly ranged attack power of the Ranger class, however, and suddenly your opponents have no escape. During my hands-on time, Battlecry consistently surprised me with level of nuance contained within each class. Running around mashing the melee button rarely worked for me, but studying and utilizing each character’s specific abilities generally produced positive results.
Interestingly, the developer I spoke with actually likened Battlecry’s combat to DmC: Devil May Cry. In theory it’s designed to require skill, practice, and patience rather than reward mindless sword-waving, and while I’m not sure DmC would have been my go-to comparison, my experience supported at least the spirit of his analogy. According to that same developer, the final version of Battlecry will likely be even more sophisticated than the alpha I played. My playtime featured just five character classes and a single map and mode, whereas the finished product will offer more of all three (though the finally tally for each remains unconfirmed).
In addition, the shipping game will apparently include a full leveling and character customization system that deepens each class’s ability set by presenting players with some risk/reward choices when equipping unlockable loadout options. We may also see other combat mechanics like an “adrenaline” system that rewards players for stringing moves into combos – a feature that was previously announced but, as far as I could tell, not available in the demo I played. And finally, you’ll find some light story elements framing the action, but for now, don’t expect a narrative-driven single-player component.
Most importantly, though, the developer I spoke with during my demo stated adamantly that any real-world money you spend on the game will go towards cosmetic options and not gameplay options. In other words, all progression must be earned, period, and players who are fine with stock costumes will likely be able to enjoy the full experience for free. While there’s clearly a lot more of Battlecry that remains to be seen, this fall’s closed beta should help the team finalize the game’s features and (hopefully) balance all those moving parts.

However, in September 2015, BattleCry Studios was hit by layoffs:

In a recent, and very quiet move, BattleCry Studios has laid off an unnamed number of staff, with one source telling us it’s a “substantial portion” of the Austin team. The game studio is known for their primary game, BattleCry (…)
There is no word as to whether or not the game is in trouble, and whether or not it will be moving forward. BattleCry Studios is a sub-studio of ZeniMax Media Inc., which is published by Bethesda Softworks, who has not returned our requests for comment.
Why are the layoffs shrouded in such mystery? We are told that employees, both past and present, are restricted by tight Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) that come with heavy lawsuits. It is said that the company hopes to keep the news quiet. It remains unknown how many people lost their jobs last week, whether they’ve been offered roles elsewhere, but it is rumored that many were able to stay with ZeniMax and will begin working at BattleCry Studio’s sister company, Arkane Studios.

The next month, Bethesda announced putting the project on-hold following concerns about the success of the game, as we can read on PCGamer:

BattleCry hasn’t managed to wow audiences quite like other Bethesda-published titles, and Bethesda seems to have noticed. At least, an official statement from the company has acknowledged that it has concerns about the third-person free-to-play action game.
“We have concerns about the Battlecry game and whether it is meeting the objectives we have for it,” the company’s statement reads. “We are evaluating what improvements the game needs to meet our quality standards. The studio remains busy during this process on multiple projects.”
Progress Bar was the original recipient of the statement, but I received it separately after contacting Bethesda’s Sydney office.
The last we heard from Battlecry was Bethesda’s E3 announcement that beta sign-ups were open – but the beta never happened. Our hands-on with the game wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring, though Evan did see some promise, writing that “uninspiring as this first hands-on was, I ended the demo with some appreciation for how agile characters are in Battlecry.”

In August 2016, it was revealed tha BattleCry Studios was helping id Software on the multiplayer mode of DOOM (2016), as we can read on GameReactor:

Doom’s multiplayer is now back under the guidance of id Software, and MP specialists Certain Affinity have been moved on. The studio, which has in the past worked on online titles including games in the Halo series, is no longer supporting Doom’s PvP element; that is now being handled directly by id, with assistance from the BattleCry team.
The news emerged during our interview with id’s Marty Stratton during Quakecon this week, at which point we were told about the studio’s ongoing plans to support and develop the online side of the demonic shooter.
What is unclear is the level of support being offered by the BattleCry team, and what, if any, impact that involvement is having on the development of their own title, BattleCry.
Late last year IGN reported that Bethesda weren’t happy with the direction that the game was taking and that the BattleCry team were also working on other projects, but it still begs the question of whether the online title is even still in development. It has, after all, been very quiet on that front in the last few months.

It was made official that BattleCry was cancelled in January 2017 as we can read on Twinfinite:

It seems like BattleCry Studios’ first and titular game, BattleCry, has been cancelled.
According to the LinkedIn profile of one Embedded QA Designer at BattleCry Studios, the free-to-play multiplayer game is officially no more.
David Dobert’s profile states that he started working for the studio as a senior embedded QA analyst for “the now cancelled game Battlecry” before moving onto DOOM’s Unto the Evil DLC. This news would come as no surprise to most, as we’ve heard nothing about the game since mid-2015.

In March 2018, BattleCry Studios became Bethesda Game Studios Austin:

BattleCry Studios has become Bethesda Game Studios Austin.
BattleCry Studios was formed in 2012 to create a free-to-play project called BattleCry, but it was shelved in 2015 after parent company Bethesda Softworks became concerned about the project.
Rather than close the studio, BattleCry has supported work for other teams and assisted the expansions for id Software’s Doom.
Now the firm has become part of Bethesda Softwork’s primary internal development unit, Bethesda Game Studios. (…)
The new Austin studio will be managed by industry veteran Doug Mellencamp as studio director.
“We’re excited to join Bethesda Game Studios and look forward to working together on some of the industry’s most exciting new games,” said Mellencamp. “Austin’s incredible game development scene and talent will also allow us to push our games further than fans have imagined.”
Game Director and Executive Producer Todd Howard added: “As the vision, scale and ambitions for our games continue to grow, so does Bethesda Game Studios. We’ve had the pleasure to know the talented developers at BattleCry, and knew we could do great things together.”

Following the rebranding, BattleCry Studios, now Bethesda Game Studios Austin, mostly worked on the infamous Fallout 76.

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PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Xbox 360

Rogue Warrior: Black Razor (Zombie Studios) [PC, Xbox 360, PS3 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

19-11-2022

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Rogue Warrior is a First-Person Shooter published by Bethesda Softworks and developed by Core Design (also known as Rebellion UK Derby, a subsidiary of Rebellion Developments), released on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2009. The game take place in 1986 during the Cold War, in which Richard Marcinko, a Navy SEAL, is sent on a mission into North Korea to disrupt ballistic missile launchers.

But before being released as such, the game was known as Rogue Warrior: Black Razor and was totally different from the final product following a rather disastrous development. Initially made by Zombie Studios, from 2005 until, at least, the first quarter of 2008, this title, planned by the time for a release around 2007-2008, already on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, took the form of a squad-based tactical First-Person Shooter/Third-Person Shooter, somewhat similar to the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon franchise, set in present day North Korea, in which we played a team of four Navy SEALs, led by Richard Marcinko, attempting to infiltrate a submarine facility to get intelligence data on the country’s nuclear capabilities. Then, as a war between north and south is about to occur, escaping and navigating through enemy territory.

Using the Unreal Engine 3 (instead, in the end, Rebellion’s proprietary engine Asura), the team insisted a lot on the various possibilities of gameplay, whether it was the non-linearity of the level design, allowing to be able to play stealth or more run and gun, or to accomplish the different objectives in any order, as well as an emphasis on the online mode, whether doing the campaign in coop or the multiplayer mode allowing you to create different combinations of maps. Following its announcement in the end of the 2006 year, numerous media had the opportunity to see the game run. Thus, Gamespot wrote:

(…) The design team at Zombie felt that the “rails” approach favored in those games (so called because you’re basically restricted to a single path) doesn’t really capture the essence of SEAL combat. SEALs are the Navy’s elite commando units, and they’re usually dispatched in small teams to operate behind enemy lines and to capture this element of SEAL warfare Rogue Warrior will have fairly large levels for a first-person shooter. The idea is that you’ll be able to approach tactical situations in the manner that you determine.
For instance, in the example that we were shown, Marcinko’s SEAL team approached a North Korean ship-breaking yard. In this situation, there were three paths that the team could follow, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. One path might be more direct, but it also increases the odds of detection, while a safer option might offer a more roundabout path that takes longer to navigate. The idea is that you can tailor your tactics to fit your situation. The levels are big, but not gigantic, designed for tactical flexibility.
During your adventures behind enemy lines, you’ll encounter a wide variety of environments and foes. In the beginning, you’ll battle North Korean conscripts, but as you progress closer and closer to the front lines of the battlefield, you’ll encounter elite North Korean Special Forces, basically the equivalent of the SEAL team. These enemies promise to be intelligent. For instance, the bad guys will actually talk to each other on the radio, and that means if you neutralize a guard and his buddies start asking for him over the radio, you’re in trouble because they’re going to investigate why he disappeared.
The game is also going to be fairly flexible in how you play it. You can switch between first- or third-person views, depending on your preference. And you can also play the game as a team tactics game, where you give simple, context-sensitive commands to your teammates (for example, you can tell one to sneak up on a guard and knife him), or you can play it as more of a run-and-gun-style action game, where your teammates just follow you wherever you go. The really cool thing about the team mechanics is that the campaign supports cooperative gameplay, whereby other players can jump in and take over any of the other three slots in your team. And if anyone drops out, the AI will take over, so you don’t miss a beat.
As cool as this new cooperative mode sounds, the new tiling system for the competitive multiplayer is even more interesting. The developers explained that one of the problems with online action games is that the levels never change. Rogue Warrior addresses this by separating the map into three sections that can be mixed and matched to create hundreds of different maps. Up to 24 players, each side can select a map tile that it wants for its side of the map, while the middle tile is determined by the server. So if one side likes to snipe, it can choose a tile with long fields of fire for its section, but the other side can counter this by choosing a built-up tile for its section, thus negating the sniper’s fields of fire. The middle section is a bit of the wild card, as the server can randomly select it. Put it together, and you never know quite how each map will play out.

And CVG, for its part, told us:

“We wanted to do some different things in the tactical shooter space than what’s already being done. We wanted to do something more openended and less constrained,” explains Pete Hines as a vivid level swells onto the monitor, revealing a North Korean ship-breaker’s yard teeming with detail and enemy patrols.
It’s one of the campaign’s earliest levels, a recreation of the start of Richard and his team’s marathon undercover journey to get back across the border to safety after they’ve been stranded in North Korea at the start of the North/South conflict.
“We wanted to base the game on a licence that would give the game a sense of authenticity, so the things that you see are as realistic as possible,” explains Hines as Zombie producer Mark Long pans around the level. On the screen, Marcinko’s digital twin and three Spec Ops sidekicks stand knee-deep in water that looks so convincing, I’m already stripped off to my pants and inflating my arm bands: an urge quickly suppressed when Long lets off a burst from his silenced MP4 into the water. The bullets kick up spray and steam rises from the superheated silencer. “We’re also working with Richard to make sure that the weapons and equipment look and feel authentic,” continues Hines as Long leads his team out of the water towards a North Korean truck parked nearby.
In a further attempt to make Rogue Warrior look and feel as authentic as possible, Zombie are not only carefully recreating Marcinko’s exploits, but are also taking pains to ensure that the freeform battlefield you inhabit reacts as realistically as possible.
Whereas many shooters still utilise a simple vehicle damage model, Rogue Warrior’s regional approach to inflicting damage is set to infuse the game with a genuine sense of believability.
“We’ve created a destructible system that’s really interactive,” enthuses Long. “If you shoot a truck’s gas tank, it’s going to explode. If you shoot the bumper it won’t really do any damage. But if you shoot the engine enough, it’ll set alight and the fire will spread, eventually reaching the gas tank.”
Eager to prove his point, he lets off a flurry of bullets, which hammer into the truck’s front bumper causing it to shake until it falls to the ground with a clang. Moving his sights to the engine, Long lets rip again, this time igniting a small flame that licks hungrily at the truck, slowly devouring it until it reaches the petrol tank. Seconds later, the truck is blown into a thousand molten shards.
Visuals aside, perhaps Rogue Warrior’s most impressive attribute is its attempt to meld run-and-gun gameplay with open-ended squad-based combat, theoretically allowing you to approach each level as aggressively or as stealthily (or indeed, as tactically) as your cold heart desires.
“We wanted to go with something that was a departure from the genre’s current nondescript, over-stylised direction,” explains Long as he moves his team towards a cluster of nearby North Korean patrolmen with a single mouse click.
With the option to command each individual team member (each of which has the same set of abilities that you have), or to issue orders to your entire team, Rogue Warrior’s gameplay is looking flexible, clearly leaning towards the more open-ended approach adopted by the likes of Splinter Cell: Double Agent than more conventional, linear shooters.
But there’s little time for contemplation right now as Long’s eager to showcase both of these playing styles. First, he chooses a tactical, stealthy approach to the conundrum of taking out the guards. Leaving the rest of his squad behind cover, he slowly flanks a lone guard before slashing his throat.
Next he cycles through his collection of booby traps – remote, time and pressure bombs -and plants one on his victim’s uniformed corpse. The dead man’s radio crackles briefly as one of his fellow guards checks in on his status, but the enquiry is met by silence.
Alerted by their comrade’s lack of response, three nearby guards rush to check on him, kneeling low in apparent concern as they search for a pulse. Big mistake. Grasping the remote detonator switch, Long takes out all three men with a single press of a button without having to fire a single shot.
“This is a system that we’re calling ‘Lure Behaviour’,” beams Long. “Guards communicate with each other via radio and they’re going to be checking on each other so they’ll know if something bad has happened to someone on patrol. You can also place a booby trap on an alarm in order to take out any enemies that try to activate it.”
With the presentation coming to a close, it’s clear that Long is determined to go out with a bang by showcasing the game’s all-out action features. Selecting one of the many routes through the level, he leads his team towards a group of gargantuan rusting hulls, surrounded by pockets of enemies.
“There are a lot of different routes that you and your team can take through the levels,” says Long as he waits for a pair of North Korean soldiers to pass his hiding place. “The Artificial Intelligence is integral to this setup. It’s designed to react to you and your team regardless of where you are on the map. The A.I.’s communicate to each other, call for alarms and reinforcements, see you and hear you. Sometimes they’ll fight you, sometimes flank you, other times they might flee and regroup.”
As the ship-breaker’s yard is engulfed in a hail of lead, Long sends two of his men to flank the enemy soldiers, who instantly seek out cover. Short bursts of gunfire are exchanged, as each side preserves its limited supply of ammo. Enemies duck out from their hiding places, before diving back, but they’re soon overpowered with a few wellplaced grenades and a cunning flanking manoeuvre that they never see coming.
“We’re trying to give you a tactical shooter with tons of potential to play the way you want to play and we’re going to throw tons of curve-balls at you along the way,” says Long as the end of level cut-scene kicks in. In it, Marcinko and his team are left contemplating their predicament as the sheer extent of their task is revealed – the camera panning for miles over the North Korean countryside, over countless battlefields, all the way to the South Korean border and safety.

However, after its presentation, Rogue Warrior: Black Razor felt into obscurity and was briefly mentionned in the beginning of 2007. In 2008, Pete Hines told FiringSquad that the game was still in development without much more information, and on spring 2009, Big Download wrote:

Big Download contacted Bethesda Softworks’ PR head Pete Hines who told us that a status report on Rogue Warrior will be made “in the next month or so.”
Currently up in the air is whether or not the game’s originally announced developer Zombie Studios is still working on the game

Few days later, Bethesda revealed the new version of the project, simply known as Rogue Warrior, with Rebellion Developments (Core Design, in fact) in charge. While interrogating by Shacknews about what happened during all those years, Pete Hines simply answered:

“Suffice it to say, we were not happy with what the direction of that project was. (…) We felt it needed a change in scope and a change in focus. And we felt that that was the focus that it needed. That the sort of squad-based, tactical–in a sense I guess it was turning into a bit of a Navy SEAL game, and it was less of a Richard Marcinko game.”

Without really knowing what was the development time for this new version, it should be noted that Core Design had just released Shellshock 2: Blood Trails in February 2009, less than 10 months before the release of Rogue Warrior. Unsurprisingly, Rogue Warrior was met with extremely negative reviews by the press, appeared to be one of the worst game ever made for the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 generation and was the last game of Core Design, which will close permanently on March 17, 2010.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t the first game based on Richard Marcinko’s exploits to be created. Around 1998-1999, Yosemite Entertainment had also a similar game, named Navy SEALs, which was cancelled with the closure of the studio.

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Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

BackSpace (Obsidian) [Cancelled – PC, Xbox 360, PS3]

monokoma

10-02-2021

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BackSpace is a cancelled sci-fi RPG that was in early development by Obsidian Entertainment from January to April 2011 (around the same time they were finishing Dungeon Siege III), to be published by Bethesda on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The project was pitched as “Sci-Fi SKYRIM with Time Travels” and it was led by Jason Fader (who also worked on Obsidian’s cancelled Aliens RPG, Fallout: New Vegas, and the System Shock remake at Nightdive Studios).

While the game was quickly canned by the studio and it was never officially announced, Kotaku published a short article on the game in 2013, showing off remaining concept art created by Obsidian and sharing a few details on its gameplay:

“BackSpace is a single-player action-RPG set in a scifi space environment with simple elements of time travel. The combat is paced similarly to Skyrim, but slightly faster since there is no concept of blocking. The easiest way to look at it is a mix of Mass Effect, Borderlands, and System Shock 2 for gameplay and setting.”
“It was to be developed in some sort of partnership with Bethesda, I’ve heard, and it’d use the same engine as their ridiculously-successful role-playing game Skyrim. Although BackSpace wasn’t an open-world game, players would be able to travel between a number of planets as well as one large space station.”
“This station is huge,” a BackSpace design document reads. “It can be compared in size to The Citadel of Mass Effect [or] Babylon 5. The station has several locations devoted to diverse research fields which would allow us to have vegetation overgrowth, high-tech disasters, and mutations of science as visual themes.”
“[…] a technical error would fling your character ten years into the future, and you’d spend a bulk of the game hopping back and forth between the time of the attack and a dismal, alien-occupied future. Quests in the game would task you with hopping between timelines in an attempt to save humankind.”

In 2017 Jason replied to a few questions on Reddit, sharing even more details on what happened to BackSpace:

“I was working closely with Bethesda on BackSpace. Since there were no other projects lined up after the Old World Blues team finished their work, I took it upon myself to try to find another project for the company. I reached out to Bethesda and directly asked them what type of game they’d be most interested in publishing next. From there, I started working on a pitch based on a prior game I made, ThreadSpace: Hyperbol (story only, not gameplay). The gameplay was something designed around Bethesda’s interests at the time. No other publishers were pitched on it, to my knowledge, but there was interest from a 3rd party in creating a TV show based on it.
I actually started working on the project a bit before that by myself after hours. Probably as early as October (2010). It was an “after school project” for a very long time, and after a few months, more and more folks would join me after hours to volunteer their time to help. I don’t think we actually worked on it by day until the final month for the prototype. Then the layoffs happened. Then I stuck around for a few more years. Then the big layoffs (including me this time).”

In April 2011 Obsidian had to lay off part of their team, including many of those developers who were working on BackSpace. With financial difficulties in keeping the team active they worked on South Park: The Stick of Truth and many cancelled ventures (such as Stormlands for Microsoft), until they found success on Kickstarter with Pillars of Eternity.

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10th Planet (Bethesda) [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

12-01-2016

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10th Planet was an ambitious space combat simulator in development as a co-venture between Bethesda Softworks (you know, the studio that published The Elder Scrolls series) and Centropolis Production, two names that in the mid / late ’90 meant an high value game and lots of hype. Centropolis is a film production company founded in 1985 by Roland Emmerich, behind such popular movies as Stargate and Independence Day.

Another small company named “XL Translab” was hired to create high quality cinematics for the game’s intro and the story that was handled by the same Hollywood team that produced ID4. Here’s a short teaser from the game’s auto demo:

Somewhere beyond the orbit of Pluto, a planet full of aliens is waiting. In a centuries long orbit, this 10th planet is heading toward earth. Only your brilliant strategies and expert piloting can destroy the alien invaders. Based upon the Xngine, which provides a true 3D environment for real time space combat.

10th Planet was in development at least since 1995 and Bethesda acquired XL Translab in December 1997, possibly because they were impressed by the FMV they created for the game. The project was briefly shown in Next Generation magazine on February 1997, were they called it “the coolest space combat sim since TIE Fighter“. Bethesda planned to recreate space battles against large sci-fi armies and huge alien ships, similar to the ones seen in Independence Day, but unfortunately something went wrong and 10th Planet had to be cancelled.

A former Bethesda developer remember that the cinematics created by XL Translab were beautiful for their time, but costed a lot of money and made the real time game on the Xngine to look ugly in comparison :

yeah I remember sitting in the Bethesda theatre and seeing what you produced. It looked great if we were going to produce a new TV show but unfortunately it probably killed the product. How on earth were we ‘the game artists’ supposed to recreate the world you were selling. Too much time and money was wasted on this trailer.

At the moment we don’t know how much of the game was completed before the cancellation, if you worked on this lost project, please let us know!

Thanks to Sam Jones for the contribution!

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Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

The Evil Within [Beta Differences]

U64 Staff & Contributors

11-11-2014

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The Evil Within (AKA Psycho Break in Japan) is a survival horror developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda Softworks for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC in 2014. As we can read from Wikipedia, work on The Evil Within started in late 2010 under the codename “Project Zwei” by Shinji Mikami, but the game was officially announced to the public only in 2013 and most of its beta elements were never shown.

Yousef was still able to notice some differences in the early trailers from the game, as the one below: from 8:11 you can see some beta gameplay, a different inventory and 2 unused (?) weapons, a knife and a mine trap.